In the Shape of a Pear
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
Satie's "Trois morceaux en forme de poire" should be three pieces (in the shape of a pear), right? Wrong. Tyically en forme himself, Satie gives us seven short pieces. But who's counting?
Pour a finger or two of Scotch, and settle down for some music from that country’s grand tradition. London-born Thomas Arne’s incidental music to “Thomas and Sally” includes the ‘Scotch Gavotte’; flutist Ransom Wilson and harpist Nancy Allen are featured in a short suite of traditional Scottish dance tunes; Camerata Bariloche brings us a much longer compilation of traditional Gaelic love songs, these from the sea rather than from the highlands; and Ronn McFarlane plays (on his 10-course lute) selections from the Wemyss Lute Book, traditional Scots tunes compiled by teen-ager Lady Margaret Wemyss way back in the 1640s.
A good deal of the evening is devoted to the world's most memorable young lovers. Vladimir Ashkenazy conducts the Royal Philharmonic in Tchaikovsky’s "Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture"; Richard Hickox leads the Bournemouth Symphony in Delius’s "A Village Romeo and Juliet: The Walk to the Paradise Garden"; and soprano Emma Eames sings Juliet's Waltz Song from Gounod's opera "Romeo et Juliette."
Fairly early in hour two, Pianists Pascal Roge and Jean-Philippe Collard, countrymen if not contemporaries of Erik Satie, perform the "Three morsels in the shape of a pear"with panache! Dana Seusse, designated "Girl Gershwin" in 1933 by The New Yorker, wrote the "Concerto romantico" in the mid-1950s, but tonight’s performance was given in 1974 as part of a benefit for the Musicians Union Emergency Relief Fund, Cy Coleman (known more as a musical-comedy writer) is the triumphant pianist; Frederick Fennell conducts the American Symphony Orchestra. It is thanks to Voice of America that we have this recording.
Pour a finger or two of Scotch, and settle down for some music from that country’s grand tradition. London-born Thomas Arne’s incidental music to “Thomas and Sally” includes the ‘Scotch Gavotte’; flutist Ransom Wilson and harpist Nancy Allen are featured in a short suite of traditional Scottish dance tunes; Camerata Bariloche brings us a much longer compilation of traditional Gaelic love songs, these from the sea rather than from the highlands; and Ronn McFarlane plays (on his 10-course lute) selections from the Wemyss Lute Book, traditional Scots tunes compiled by teen-ager Lady Margaret Wemyss way back in the 1640s.
A good deal of the evening is devoted to the world's most memorable young lovers. Vladimir Ashkenazy conducts the Royal Philharmonic in Tchaikovsky’s "Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overture"; Richard Hickox leads the Bournemouth Symphony in Delius’s "A Village Romeo and Juliet: The Walk to the Paradise Garden"; and soprano Emma Eames sings Juliet's Waltz Song from Gounod's opera "Romeo et Juliette."
Fairly early in hour two, Pianists Pascal Roge and Jean-Philippe Collard, countrymen if not contemporaries of Erik Satie, perform the "Three morsels in the shape of a pear"with panache! Dana Seusse, designated "Girl Gershwin" in 1933 by The New Yorker, wrote the "Concerto romantico" in the mid-1950s, but tonight’s performance was given in 1974 as part of a benefit for the Musicians Union Emergency Relief Fund, Cy Coleman (known more as a musical-comedy writer) is the triumphant pianist; Frederick Fennell conducts the American Symphony Orchestra. It is thanks to Voice of America that we have this recording.
